The Final Omnibus Poll - Match-up edition

Living in McCain's home state, there won't be much point in me voting in any election where he is present (aside from ballot initiatives and other things on the ticket). I'm generally a fan of gridlock anyway.

I would still be motivated to vote for Obama if he were an option simply because he would be the first candidate on any presidential ballot in my short voting career for whom I was genuinely a supporter. If Huckabee pulls a rabit out of his bible and wins the GOP nomination, I'll vote for anyone that keeps him out of office.

Burritos are an inferior creation of Californians and pale in comparison to the simple perfection of a good carne asada or pastor taco.

So withdrawing from Iraq (the same as Obama wants to do) is 10x worse than McCain's plan?

How is her stance worse than 10x McCain's, yet Obama's (all but identical stance) acceptable?

Iraq isn't the only conceivable foreign policy decision these people could be making in the next 8 years. I wouldn't trust Clinton to tie my shoes much less react in a way I see as favorable down the line. I would certainly see her doing anything that is favorable for her political career rather than doing the thing that's best for the country. McCain wouldn't be as good as Obama but is better than Clinton.

Originally posted by PeterB:Although I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who is "fully frightened" of a universal healthcare policy, because such a person is clearly not making evidence-based judgements.

Oh please spare me your derision, it's so predictable as to be free of any real sting.

I'm not afraid of the idea of a UHC policy in a general sense. I'm afraid of what Obama's or Hillary's UHC policies will do to our alread tottering (maybe you hadn't noticed) economy.

Show me the evidence which suggests that the 102-124 Billion USD per year that his plan is supposed to cost is going to come some place other than straight out of my income tax, and that the overall quality of healthcare (please note I didn't say "quality of the healthcare system", which is a piece of crap) won't decline, and I'll stop being afraid of UHC.

^^That's not bluster, that's the truth. I'd love to change my opinion, but for those two points. I seem to hear WILDLY different stories about how successful it's been elsewhere depending on who I talk to, and no one seems to be talking about how we'll pay for it. If we make such a dramatic shift in one of the most fundamental components of our nations future and decide we've fucked it up, how hard is it going to be to get people to make the shift again? Why can't I find compelling, seemingly objective information on those two points? And if it's out there, but I haven't seen it, kindly refrain from telling me what a fucking idiot I am for not having stumbled across it while you point me to it.

For that matter, I'd love to know what you think is so terribly wrong with wanting a president who will recreate some sense of unity in the country as opposed to deepening our disagreements, which is what the last 8 years have done.

Originally posted by PeterB:It doesn't matter how great a guy McCain may be--he simply cannot build the kind of rapport with foreign nations that Bush so spectacularly destroyed until he stops supporting the Iraq war.

I don't see how that follows. There have already been significant steps towards reconciliation of relationships that were fractured over the Iraq war, even though Bush is still in office and the policy regarding Iraq hasn't changed at all. See: Sarkozy and France, Merkel and Germany.

There have already been significant steps towards reconciliation of relationships that were fractured over the Iraq war, even though Bush is still in office and the policy regarding Iraq hasn't changed at all. See: Sarkozy and France, Merkel and Germany.

I don't think so. That the leaders of the governments you mentioned are somewhat in a better or more communicative mode with Bush means very little. Have you been to Europe within the last year? I have. Popular disdain for the US and it's idiotic policies hasn't diminished at all, and why would it? We are still there imposing our will on what was once a sovereign nation, a secular society, and a rich country. We destroyed all that, and now because the number of casualties is lower we'd like to see instant (or even gradual) beneplacit from the people of countries that were against this war from the beginning. Forget the governments, they are as corrupt and stupid (although orders of magnitude more intelligent) than what we have to suffer here, it's the people, it the nations that continue to feel, and IMO deservedly so, that we are a bunch of stupid yahoos with a trigger-happy mentality. Just a bunch of classless cowboys, an anachronism of the worst kind.

Have you been to Europe within the last year? I have. Popular disdain for the US and it's idiotic policies hasn't diminished at all, and why would it?

I have and many of them have far enough to go to get over their own dislike, dare I say racism, of various races/culture groups, to even begin to care about the US.

(In other words, they are too busy hating other cultures/races/countries that have a greater impact on their lives to care that much about the US)

So I guess Hitler didn't go far enough to make people see the horror of hating other cultures, races, or countries. You would think that with all the people he killed in the name of "the supreme race", people would start to realize how stupid that kind of thinking is...

Oh please spare me your derision, it's so predictable as to be free of any real sting.

I'm not afraid of the idea of a UHC policy in a general sense. I'm afraid of what Obama's or Hillary's UHC policies will do to our alread tottering (maybe you hadn't noticed) economy.

No, I haven't noticed. Last I checked, you still had the biggest economy in the world, and it's still growing.

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Show me the evidence which suggests that the 102-124 Billion USD per year that his plan is supposed to cost is going to come some place other than straight out of my income tax,

Who cares? Stop buying insurance. And $100bn/year? That's easy to cover--it's paid for by bringing the fucking troops home from Iraq.

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and that the overall quality of healthcare (please note I didn't say "quality of the healthcare system", which is a piece of crap) won't decline, and I'll stop being afraid of UHC.

US healthcare is already nothing special. Note that I said "healthcare", not "healthcare system". US healthcare is not good even for the people who can afford it. It might be OK, but it's certainly not at the top of the chart.

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^^That's not bluster, that's the truth.

It's bluster, that's all it is.

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I'd love to change my opinion, but for those two points. I seem to hear WILDLY different stories about how successful it's been elsewhere depending on who I talk to, and no one seems to be talking about how we'll pay for it.

Who cares? It'll be such a massive boost to the economy anyway, it doesn't matter who pays for it. It'll boost worker mobility, it'll push US labour costs closer to RoW labour costs, it'll reduce time lost to illness, it'll push healthcare costs down... the benefits are immense.

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For that matter, I'd love to know what you think is so terribly wrong with wanting a president who will recreate some sense of unity in the country as opposed to deepening our disagreements, which is what the last 8 years have done.

What benefits do you see from a "sense of unity", and what makes you think that democrats will unite behind McCain when the guy is opposed to, oh, just about everything they stand for (except for torture, I'll give him that)?

Given the left-leaning tendencies of this board, I find it incredibly remarkable that fully 2/3 of McCain voters, and almost all of the abstain/other voters, will jump ship to Obama if he's the candidate.

If nothing else illustrates the sheer short-sighted foolishness and idiocy of a Democrat voting for Hillary Clinton, I don't know what does.

quote: Show me the evidence which suggests that the 102-124 Billion USD per year that his plan is supposed to cost is going to come some place other than straight out of my income tax,

Who cares? Stop buying insurance.

You do realize that under Clintons "UHC" plan that he won't be able to stop buying insurance. In fact he would be fined for not buying insurance. Good thing we have these mandates to guarantee corporate profits for insurance companies on the table from her.

I don't see how that follows. There have already been significant steps towards reconciliation of relationships that were fractured over the Iraq war, even though Bush is still in office and the policy regarding Iraq hasn't changed at all. See: Sarkozy and France, Merkel and Germany.

Being pro-Bush and pro-Iraq is still a massive liability for any world leader at the moment (it was certainly a factor in Australia last year, for example). Merkel and Sarkozy both made points in their campaigns that Iraq was bad and that they weren't going to get involved. They distanced themselves from the entire debacle. Close proximity to the US (of the kind seen pre-9/11, even) is just too dangerous for many world leaders.

Given the left-leaning tendencies of this board, I find it incredibly remarkable that fully 2/3 of McCain voters, and almost all of the abstain/other voters, will jump ship to Obama if he's the candidate.

If nothing else illustrates the sheer short-sighted foolishness and idiocy of a Democrat voting for Hillary Clinton, I don't know what does.

unfortunately the preferences of the soapbox haven't been that great at predicting what the general us electorate will do, or even what democrats in general will do.

Who cares? It'll be such a massive boost to the economy anyway, it doesn't matter who pays for it. It'll boost worker mobility, it'll push US labour costs closer to RoW labour costs, it'll reduce time lost to illness, it'll push healthcare costs down... the benefits are immense.

I guess you are still digging up the links which support these assertions?

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What benefits do you see from a "sense of unity"

You can't take me seriously because I dare to question the benefits of the proposed UHC plans, and yet you expect me to, with a straight face, explain to you why unity is more beneficial than infighting to society at large? LOL.

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what makes you think that democrats will unite behind McCain when the guy is opposed to, oh, just about everything they stand for (except for torture, I'll give him that)?

I guess you are still digging up the links which support these assertions?

Read her bloody plan! Or just engage you brain. Do you really need a link to a fucking web page to explain to you how people having a decent fall-back position which won't leave them without adequate healthcare means they're less tied to their employer (and specifically, their employer's health insurance), hence boosting worker mobility?

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You can't take me seriously because I dare to question the benefits of the proposed UHC plans, and yet you expect me to, with a straight face, explain to you why unity is more beneficial than infighting to society at large? LOL.

Er, yes, actually.

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I can't find the part where I refer to McCain as a uniter

Since you're going to reject Hillary because she's divisive and instead vote republican then surely McCain (who's gonna get the nomination) must be less divisive? Or else you'd reject him too for the same reason? You say you'd vote for any republican over Hillary, so they must all be less divisive than her. Unless you're just being a hypocrite.

^^ Well, since nearly my entire post spawned this side discussion between you and I was in answer to why I like Obama better than Hillary, and during which I mentioned that although I can't bring myself to vote for Hillary, I also don't think that any of the Republicans are uniters like Obama is (hence my preference for him over Hillary), and since you have managed to find objection to nearly every other comment I made, I thought you might have been able to determine that my entire point was Hillary=divisive, Obama=Uniter, Repubs not uniters, but better than Hillary.

Well, since nearly my entire post spawned this side discussion between you and I was in answer to why I like Obama better than Hillary,

But that wasn't the question.

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and during which I mentioned that although I can't bring myself to vote for Hillary, I also don't think that any of the Republicans are uniters like Obama is (hence my preference for him over Hillary), and since you have managed to find objection to nearly every other comment I made, I thought you might have been able to determine that my entire point was Hillary=divisive, Obama=Uniter, Repubs not uniters, but better than Hillary.

In what sense are they better than Hillary but not better than Obama, when Hillary and Obama are identical, save for one being a white woman and the other being a black man? Why are the democrat policies OK when from Obama, but inferior to the republican policies when from Clinton? What gives?

I have and many of them have far enough to go to get over their own dislike, dare I say racism, of various races/culture groups, to even begin to care about the US.

Really?

Where in Europe have you been? I've been to the UK, France, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. I didn't see what you mention, and I stay at friend's homes in Europe since I practically grew up there. I saw tension (especially in France), but other than that, business as usual.

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(In other words, they are too busy hating other cultures/races/countries that have a greater impact on their lives to care that much about the US)

You don't know the meaning of disdain then. They don't care too much about our problems, but when they are asked about the US and its policies, they show disdain. You don't need to get involved all that much to feel contempt.

You've already had multiple explanations regarding why Clinton and Obama are considered different, you merely choose to ignore them.

They aren't different in any substantive sense. There are, however, numerous policy differences between Clinton/Obama and the republican candidates. If you prefer Obama's policies (such that you'd vote for him over any republican), Clinton's are closer to Obama's than any republican candidate (and vice versa, if you prefer Clinton's policies).

McCain and Obama might be bought and paid for, but if they are, they're trying to hide it.

If I were running, I'd take lobbyist money too. Why wouldn't you? It's free money. I mean, that's the one good thing about the legalized corruption that is "lobbying". If you're taking money from some shady mob boss, and you don't do what he wants you to do, you'll get your leg broken (or worse). OTOH, if you don't do what lobbyists want you to do, they can go fuck themselves.

They aren't different in any substantive sense. There are, however, numerous policy differences between Clinton/Obama and the republican candidates. If you prefer Obama's policies (such that you'd vote for him over any republican), Clinton's are closer to Obama's than any republican candidate (and vice versa, if you prefer Clinton's policies).

To mirror somewhat what eXceLon said, you are making the idiotic assumption that a political candidate is nothing more than a list of policy stances.

The decision to/to not vote for a candidate, particularly a presidential candidate, is a lot more than that. It's a combination of multiple factors, of which policy is only one part of a much larger whole. I realize you're trying to prove a point by oversimplifying, but, it's failing...miserably.

You're also completely ignoring John McCain's history. Prior to about 4-5 years ago, he was the poster boy for a moderate-to-liberal Republican, and his voting record backs that up. A lot of people (including myself) place a lot more credence in that than his recent campaigning. Personally, I find his kowtowing to the conservative base over the last few years disgraceful, particularly his about-face on torture issues, but there you have it.

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weyland: unfortunately the preferences of the soapbox haven't been that great at predicting what the general us electorate will do, or even what democrats in general will do.

True, but, it mirrors national polling to a considerable extent, and the divide between McCain and Clinton will only grow wider once he secures the nomination and begins courting moderate Democrats and Independents.

I guess you could say that I view McCain and Clinton as roughly equal evils (both notably better IMHO than what we have now), however when I compare Clinton to Huckabee or Romney, she seems clearly a lesser evil.

Ok, I'm about 28 years old. I cringed with the rest of you through Bill Clinton's eight year term in office. I enjoyed hating Hillary Clinton along with many people in my social circles (Libertarian to Libertarian Republican), although in retrospect, it does appear that most of the bile was aimed at her not for what she advocated, but because she dared to be anything more than an ornament as First Lady. I didn't really mind the Monica scandal so much as the war in Kosovo, which seemed at the time to be a very risky gamble (Russia had the potential to be extremely upset with us) for no apparent gain to us or the general good. I, like many people, thought that 'at least Bush (Jr) won't be as bad as Clinton was. Clearly, I was wrong.

So now it's election time again, and I find myself in the ironic position of thinking that Hillary Clinton is the best of the lot (which doesn't necessarily say much, you may infer). I like McCain a fair bit, although he's taken to making all kinds of promises to the religious right (that I doubt he'd actually keep) so as to avoid getting attacked by that particularly rabid demographic (I know how rabid from personal experience --see above). I think, however, that having a democrat in the presidency for the next term or so might be better --especially if the congress flips back to the republicans when the democrats prove unable to bring us quickly out of the ungodly mess that Bush Jr has us in.

That said: If Obama wins the democratic nomination, I'll vote for McCain. (Heck, I might even vote for Huckabee, if it came down to it --can't be worse than Bush, and at least he speaks English properly--, although there's little risk of it). I wouldn't vote for Romney (he's *really* evil/stupid) over Obama --I'd probably just stay home, or vote for whoever's running on the Libertarian platform.

And why? Because even though Obama sounds fantastic whenever he speaks, he never actually *says* anything. All his best speeches are constructions of generalized fluff. We all have dreams. We can all work together. We can make America Great. Wow, awesome, yeah. Sign me up. But how?

The first time I heard him put on the spot to provide details, all his erudition and poise vanished. (Incidentally, the same thing happens to Al Gore whenever he's talking about generalized mom and apple-pie stuff, instead of talking about global warming, which he really believes in. Go watch an Inconvenient Truth again)

So let's look at what Obama says he'll do if he's elected. He wants to fund early childhood education programs. Sounds great. How will he do it? He will: delay NASA[s] Constellation Program for five years, ... [govt's negotiating power, auction surplus property, stop erroneous payments, close loopholes, and spend money that would have gone to Iraq].

Ok, I can understand a politician's willingness to spend money that we don't really have because someone else is already spending it (the Iraq war $$), but wtf is up with cutting NASA? It's not like NASA even has that big portion of the US budget. Seems the only reason to single it out is that it's visible (and was made into a pet project of Bush Jr). This seems like petty and uninformed politics as usual. Where's that change that Sen. Obama is promising me? Work hard in school kids. Excel in math and science so that you can discover and invent new things, so long as I haven't decided to randomly cut your funding as a political stunt.

So what, you ask, if Constellation is delayed for five years? Can't they just do it later? The answer, dear readers, is a bit complicated.

The first problem is that if you cut a project's funding. Everyone who works on the project goes and gets a new job somewhere else. So that expert team of people you've spent so long to put together to work on that project just vanished. When you finally do get funding again, you'll have to spend time trying to reassemble a team. This will drive the net cost of the project by the time it is completed higher --and if the delay to reassemble the team is too large, you'll probably get your funding cut just before you can finish, because you're now overbudget and overdue.

It takes about a decade to produce a senior researcher more or less from scratch (counting 2 years of undergrad, ~6 of graduate school, and 3 years of postdoctoral work). After making that time investment, what do you think said researchers are going to do when they see the prospect of being jerked around for at least another five years before they could do what they've worked so hard to be in a position to do? They leave science and get jobs in technical/management consulting or finance. Many of my friends have done it, and at this point, I'm seriously considering it.

This isn't just about Obama and NASA. It's happened to many other projects many times before. Fusion is a good perennial example of this kind of process. Every time it gets the politically motivated axe, all the young researchers move on to other fields. Right now the field's demographics is almost entirely composed of older people (who got started in the 70s) and graduate students. Incidentally, fusion just got pounded again, this time by a democratic congress which passed a law saying that ITER was not only cut out of the budget, but that no extra federal funds could be shifted to support any of its projects. Take that Bush Jr! Too bad that MIT had to lay off its entire advanced magnet system team as collateral damage. Giving the project funding again next year won't bring that expertise back together.

I'm fed up.

So why Hillary? One thing the Clintons understood while they were in office was that you need to fund science for the long term. I may not agree with many of her positions. I know she's a canny and sometimes cynical political operator. But she also knows what side her (and the country's) bread is buttered on.

Where in Europe have you been? I've been to the UK, France, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland, and Spain. I didn't see what you mention, and I stay at friend's homes in Europe since I practically grew up there. I saw tension (especially in France), but other than that, business as usual.

Spain, France, UK.

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You don't know the meaning of disdain then. They don't care too much about our problems, but when they are asked about the US and its policies, they show disdain. You don't need to get involved all that much to feel contempt.

Well if that is all then quite frankly I'm not worried about it. If someone asked me about how I feel about how France is dealing with their immigration problems then I might have a negative opinion but I seriously doubt French people give a god damn how I feel.

Well if that is all then quite frankly I'm not worried about it. If someone asked me about how I feel about how France is dealing with their immigration problems then I might have a negative opinion but I seriously doubt French people give a god damn how I feel.

No, it goes well beyond that. Inmigration is a domestic policy. The contempt towards the US is on a more general scale. As I wrote previously, they see our policies are ridiculously stupid in regards to pretty much everything. They see Americans either as evil motherfuckers or dumb ass yahoos. Since in order to be an evil motherfucker some acumen is required, and according to the last (almost) 8 years Americans have shown a complete ignorance and a pathetic submission to the brainwashing imposed by the government, they rule out that option, leaving only the dumb ass yahoo one. I can't say I disagree with that assessment. I, along with many other posters here, *fucking knew* from the very onset that the Iraq "thing" was a total invention, yet until recently (and I am sure some people still hold to that idea) Americans continued to believe that Saddam had WMDs, and that he had been involved in the 911 tragedy.

Perhaps you visited Europe on business and then of course, no-one is going to make comments on the idiocy prevalent in this country. Perhaps you don't have friends there that will tell you what they truly think about America because they wouldn't want to offend you?

I'm telling you this because I pass for a brit when in Europe, because I attended secondary education in London, and then stayed in Europe until I was 22. So when in America I have a slight accent, but in Europe everyone I meet thinks I'm from the UK, so they can criticise at will without fear of offending me as an American (which would never happen anyway since I would agree with most of the critiques).

This I simply did not see in my travels. Maybe you are staying with a bunch of assholes.

Or perhaps you are blindly living in denial. Or perhaps it is you who is staying with assholes, since I don't think anyone can find fault if the US's foreign policy is viewed with disdain. Perhaps you don't. Perhaps you are one of the Americans who think that going to Iraq was a Good Thing™. If that's the case, we have very little to talk about, other to agree to disgree.

This I simply did not see in my travels. Maybe you are staying with a bunch of assholes.

Or perhaps you are blindly living in denial. Or perhaps it is you who is staying with assholes, since I don't think anyone can find fault if the US's foreign policy is viewed with disdain. Perhaps you don't. Perhaps you are one of the Americans who think that going to Iraq was a Good Thing™. If that's the case, we have very little to talk about, other to agree to disgree.

There is a big jump between viewing us going into Iraq as a bad thing and:

Originally posted by PeterB:Could the people who clearly quaff copious amounts of paint stripper please explain to me how they would vote for Obama if he ran, but would vote fucking Republican if it were Hillary who got the nomination? Given that Obama and Clinton are ideologically fucking identical and that the Republicans are all various kinds of fascist and/or lunatic?

I mean, sure, even if you hate Hillary as a person, how the hell can you dismiss what she's standing for in such a cavalier manner?

I disagree with your premise that Hillary and Obama are ideologically identical.

For me, it comes down to who is going to do the most to curb corporate excess. Obama seemingly will (if he is anything like Edwards) then, based on past history, I think McCain would (see: McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform). Hillary... not so much. Bill, after all, got NAFTA passed.